Bad habits are useless, negative associations that bring you further from your ideal self.
And they can be so damn difficult to get rid of if you don’t understand what makes them as permanent as marker.
Permanent until you find the right solution.
Two Basic Variables that Perpetuate Negative Habits
| Understanding the principles of habit development can help you to change your life and develop a more proactive frame of mind. |
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Your repetitive actions (and mental states) exist based on physiology and the way you represent things internally, so in order to change useless habits you first need to become aware of the above two variables.
So let’s do that!
How We “Talk” to Ourselves Determines How We Act
Think of internal representation as the computer code that enables a website or device to do specific tasks. It’s a set of instructions that determines what you do every day.
- One person has a program set up that has enabled him to travel the world and make money online.
- Another has a pattern that keeps him complaining of how he hates his job, but also keeps him from taking uncomfortable action to get a new one.
When you focus on the initial programming of your good and bad habits, you can set your mind up to follow patterns that will help you accomplish your goals, instead of block them.
When you know the language with which you internally represent things, you can choose to present patterns that will empower you with useful habits.
Tony Robbins sums up mental frames fantastically:
In any experience, you have many things to focus on- no matter how terrible a situation is, you can represent it in a way that empowers you. We can represent things in a way that puts us in a positive state, or we can do the opposite. If we don’t consciously direct our own minds and states, our environment may produce undesirable states. We must weed our garden by deciding what we are going to focus on. Successful people are able to gain access to their most resourceful states on a consistent basis. – Anthony Robbins
The Way We Carry Ourselves
The way you “carry your self” affects not only how other people see you, but also how you see your self.
Play with physiology and note the impact immediately.
- Sit up straight and breath in deeply for 1 minute. Bring your shoulders back and plant your feet on the floor. Now concentrate on a time that you felt very confident. Notice how you feel.
- Next, reverse gears and Spend 1 minute slouching and breathing shallow breaths. Notice how powerless you feel.
There are significant differences in emotional reactions that occur based simply on these small physiological changes.
Small tweaks in:
- Posture
- Biochemistry
- body language
- muscular tension / relaxation
- diet
- etc.
Can change your entire life.
Your mind and body will work together to create your mental and physical habits, and you can learn how to change your patterns immediately.
Change Your Bad Habits with the Swish Pattern
For example:
Most people can relate to the feeling of BOTH wanting to exercise to get fit and healthy and also not wanting to because “it’s too hard,” etc. If you’ve ever experienced those contradicting feelings, then do this exercise to learn more about how you framed your experience in that moment.
You’ll need a simple pen and paper for this, and about 15-30 minutes to yourself. These 30 minutes could change your entire life, or they may not. It’s all in your hands.
PART 1: Put yourself in an empowered frame.
- Think of a time you have felt most excited about going to the gym.
- How did you sensorily represent “the desire to exercise” (the desired behavioral pattern) in your mind? Write down what you saw, said, felt, heard, or tasted when you considered exercising. Focus on what you experience(d) internally and take notes of any physical changes in your body- while thinking about it- or at that time.) Spend as long as you need writing down details of how the experience was visualized, felt, etc.
- How were you standing/sitting before you went to workout? What was your breathing like in the empowered state? How did you move? Quickly and with determination or did you meander?
Estimated completion time: 5-10 minutes.
PART 2: Put yourself in a disempowered state.
Repeat the first exercise, while focusing on a time when you failed to achieve your desired outcome. Many bad habits occur because thinking goes unchecked and people just continue to live by their unconscious habits.
Estimated completion time 5-10 minutes.
PART 3: The Swish Pattern
Watch and apply the swish pattern to how you represent things:
This exercise becomes faster as you do it more and more. Soon you’ll find you are able to transform your emotions and actually change your mental tendencies.
It’s nuts but it works!
(Bonus: If you want to learn more about things like the Swish Pattern and NLP, I highly recommend Tony Robbins book that has changed thousands of lives and it can help you work on bad habits.)
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